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PAKISTAN : MUST THERE BE PAKISTAN ?
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Switzerland. Notwithstanding these affinities the nationalities in Switzerland have been Swiss first and Germans, Italians and French afterwards.
Given the experience of the French in Canada, the English in South Africa and the French and the Italians in Switzerland, the questions that arise are, why should it be otherwise in India ? Assuming that the Hindus and the Muslims split into two nations, why cannot they live in one country and under one constitution ? Why should the emergence of the two-nation theory make partition necessary ? Why should the Musalmans be afraid of losing their nationality and national culture by living with the Hindus ? If the Muslims insist on separation, the cynic may well conclude that there is so much that is common between the Hindus and the Musalmans that the Muslim leaders are afraid that unless there is partition whatever little distinctive Islamic culture is left with the Musalmans will eventually vanish by continued social contact with the Hindus with the result that in the end instead of two nations there will grow up in India one nation. If the Muslim nationalism is so thin then the motive for partition is artificial and the case for Pakistan loses its very basis.
VI
Must there be Pakistan because otherwise Swaraj will be a Hindu Raj ? The Musalmans are so easily carried away by this cry that it is necessary to expose the fallacies underlying.
In the first place, is the Muslim objection to Hindu Raj a conscientious objection or is it a political objection ? If it is a conscientious objection all one can say is that it is a very strange sort of conscience. There are really millions of Musalmans in India who are living under unbridled and uncontrolled Hindu Raj of Hindu Princes and no objection to it has been raised by the Muslims or the Muslim League. The Muslims had once a conscientious objection to the British Raj. Today not only have they no objection to it but they are the greatest supporters of it. That there should be no objection to British Raj or to undiluted Hindu Raj of a Hindu Prince but that there should be objection to Swaraj for British India on the ground that it is Hindu Raj as though it was not subjected to checks and balances is an attitude the logic of which it is difficult to follow.